Nigeria’s Workjeje is an online connection hub connecting individuals and companies to quality service providers in their vicinity, catering to urban dwellers that prioritise quality and convenience in the services they seek.
Workjeje was founded in 2021 by Fortune Nwankwo, Collins Onyebuchi and Ejike Anthony, three students at the University Of Nigeria, who were all experiencing the same problem.
“It was really hard to get service providers, let alone reliable ones. They were so unserious, they’d tell you they would come in the afternoon and show up four days later, and worst of all might deliver mediocre services,” Nwankwo told Disrupt Africa.
“Collins called me one day into his house to share his proposed solution to me, so I called my friend Wisdom – who is a programmer – to build it, and that was how Workjeje started.”
Whereas Wrkman, a competitor in the Nigerian market, focuses on quantity of artisans, Workjeje is strongly focused on quality.
“We had customers asking if the artisans were pre-vetted, which of course is a pain point for them, especially for women who would love to feel safe when a stranger is in their home. We pre-vet our artisans by onboarding them ourselves, and still monitor their contracts and ratings to maintain optimum quality,” Nwankwo said.
“Customer feedback has been really important to us. At the test phase, some customers believed our vetting process was not very thorough, and some artisans did not look the part. We listened, we churned a lot of unserious artisans, we made sure we vetted the artisans ourselves, and we prioritised service companies because they have more to lose.”
Workjeje currently operates in Abuja and Enugu as test markets, and is taking its growth plan seriously and slowly.
“We were funded twice by friends – first at the building stage and the second at the marketing phase,” said Nwankwo.
“Getting 10 successful transactions was a major booster for us even though we were still in the testing phase. It showed us people actually were ready to pay for the convenience we provide. Right now we have processed over 70 transactions.”
The startup recently completed a new feature that its artisans had been asking for – an escrow service, primarily designed for delivery services to protect themselves against unpaid bills. The startup collects between five and 10 per cent from its artisans as fees, depending on its agreement with them, Workjeje also plans to incorporate advertisements on its platform in the near future.
“We plan on expanding to major states and cities across Nigeria, and in time Africa to limit the macro influence on our business,” said Nwankwo.
